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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500997">Going Big; Going Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohjustdisarmalready/pseuds/ohjustdisarmalready'>ohjustdisarmalready</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Road Goes On [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Undertale (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>...please choose go home. please. oh god damn it, Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Angst, Backstory, Broken Families, Everyone Needs Therapy, Gen, No Romance, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), absolutely no communication ever, general underfell horribleness, go big or go home</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:27:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500997</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohjustdisarmalready/pseuds/ohjustdisarmalready</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Back when Sans was in stripes and Papyrus was in more stripes, they were brothers and that meant something. </p><p>What the hell happened?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frisk &amp; Papyrus &amp; Sans (Undertale), Papyrus &amp; Sans (Undertale)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Road Goes On [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790866</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. scuse me sir if i'm out of line, but i think you might be out of your mind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoardingstories/gifts">hoardingstories</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So! This is Red's much-awaited backstory for my fic, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23371141/chapters/55997908">And Whither Then? I Cannot Say</a>. It can be read as a standalone, but it's meant to build up to that fic and explain why exactly he does the things he does. If you don't wanna read that first, here's the gist:</p><p>-Underfell<br/>-Sans and Papyrus have each other's backs but they do NOT have to like it<br/>-They later adopt Frisk as a third, weird, fleshy skeleton sibling and they're all a happy family living in blissful peace and tentative reconciliation until the events of Whither Then</p><p>This fic outlines Sans's life from Papyrus's birth right up to Whither Then, including all major ups and downs. There are a lot of downs. It gets worse before it get better, folks. My apologies.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sans was always a dedicated brother.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This one's for you, Patch! A few people mentioned wanting Red's POV on why he does the things that he does, actually. And others have wanted him to suffer. I hope this is satisfying for you!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>i was a selfish kid</em>.</p><p>Back when Sans was in stripes and Papyrus was in more stripes, they were brothers and that meant something. It meant everything to Sans. He loved being a big brother—how could he not, when he was the brother of such a cool little dude? He adored the kid beyond the telling of it. If he was a fantastic big brother and nothing else, he’d be happy, he thought. He didn’t need anything else.</p><p>Sure, maybe Sans was a little lonely before Paps came around. A little sad. A little scared. He was definitely trouble, back when he was an only child—never met a rule he couldn’t break, and not too many other things, either. Sans has always had a unique talent for fucking shit up, and he loved being the center of attention.</p><p>He’s surprised to this day that anyone looked at him and said, “Oh, yeah, we gotta make another one of those.”</p><p>That all changed when Papyrus came into the picture.</p><p>Well, not all of it—Sans was actively worse on the furniture once he had someone to show off to, and it took him a bit to figure out exactly how gentle he had to be with a babybones, but a couple of bruises and dinged HP never seemed to bother Papyrus—it scared Sans more than it did his brother.</p><p>The two were inseparable as soon as Papyrus was old enough to even begin to follow Sans around. Hell, Sans was sneaking into Papyrus’s room before Paps could even crawl. He’d never been a big brother before, but he wanted to practice as much as possible, so Papyrus would grow up knowing he had the best big brother <em>ever</em>.</p><p>Sometimes Sans got bored, because he was pretty little and Papyrus was even littler and couldn’t really do much; but he remembers being a very attentive bro from the very start.</p><p>As soon as Papyrus was walking, it was pretty clear that the feeling was mutual. He used to stumble after Sans everywhere, and Sans was constantly turning around to check that his little brother was watching the cool things he was doing. He read to Papyrus. He talked to him. He whispered secrets and shouted excitement and cried when Papyrus fell down the stairs and bruised his radius (Sans <em>hated</em> the sound of bone hitting something hard and unforgiving).</p><p>Sans summoned his first bone attack under Papyrus’s close, wondrous attention, and Paps made his own first sparkle of magic immediately afterward. Sans crowed about it for fifteen minutes, an untold amount of time at that age. He’s pretty sure Papyrus doesn’t remember that day, but it was Sans he was copying when he developed his magic.</p><p>It was also Sans who insisted on sleeping in his brother’s room every night as they got a little older, who asked a hundred times if it was really OK for his brother to be that <em>small</em>, who scowled and locked the doors when people passed by outside. They were both too little to understand, at first, but Sans was getting bigger, and he was sharp enough to know that there were good reasons that they couldn’t play out there with the other monsters.</p><p>They passed a few years like that, happy and young in their own little bubble of heaven. Maybe sometimes they had to hide under the desk with its drawers taken out to fit them and be very quiet, or maybe they’d hear distant screams and hopeless pleas and laughter at night, but Sans was a big brother and that was way more important than the stuff outside. Paps was learning to read and then he was learning math and magic and Sans was learning how to make mac and cheese and bone attacks in their warm little kitchen, and it was good.</p><p>Later, it was Sans who got a tooth knocked out of his head, along with the rest of his innocence. Relative innocence. He was still in stripes, but the rose-tinted glasses of childhood got ripped away that day, and he realized that those numbers no one else could see in everyone’s SOULs—LOVE, EXP, KR—those were important.</p><p>This one goes up if you hurt someone; that one goes up if you mean it. Everyone wants a higher number. <em>Everyone</em>. And they don’t care how they get it.</p><p>Papyrus always acts like he’s so jaded and hurt, like no one ever even tried to look out for him, but it was <em>Sans</em> who realized that their world was cruel, that day—the day he earned a scar on his SOUL that will never heal. It was Sans who sobbed and clutched his face and hunched over himself and fell to the dusty ground because it hurt <em>so damn bad</em>. It was Sans who saw early on that innocence was precious and rare, as his own got shattered with a harsh <em>snap</em>.</p><p>It was Sans who realized that it was just the two of them from then on, that he had to look after his little brother or no one else would. It terrified him. It was the end of his life up until that point, and the start of a life that he didn’t think he could survive. How could he live all alone in a world like this? How could he keep someone else, someone helpless and defenseless, safe?</p><p>Survival isn’t guaranteed for anyone. Strong, clever, talented people who aren’t afraid to kill for what they want die every day. Looking at a world like that, with his eyes suddenly open to just what that world is, how could Sans expect to make it through a week?</p><p>The obvious answer was to cut Papyrus loose—Sans was too young to take care of himself without help, let alone a babybones. Sans knows it’s what anyone would have expected him to do, what he ‘should’ have done, according to the fucked-up rules of the Underground. It never even occurred to him to abandon his brother, though. When things got rough and shaky, Sans stuck by his family, because damn it, he <em>tries</em>. Even when things are rocky, there was nothing that could make Sans turn his back on Papyrus.</p><p>Sans knows he hasn’t always made things work. There have been a lot of times when there was nothing he could do that was good or even okay, and he’s chosen to do something awful that hurt Papyrus with his eyes wide open, because all of his other choices were equally terrible and he went with whatever kept them alive and together for one more day.</p><p>He knows that Paps wanted him to find some way to do the right thing, to make things right for them, to find the least-terrible path through the sea of dust; and he knows that sometimes, there just wasn’t a way to do that. Or maybe there was, and he just didn’t see it. Someone else could have done right by Papyrus, probably. But no one else was there.</p><p>Sans was thrown from his lifeboat with a broken oar and a kid to look after, and no matter what else he’s accused of, no one can say he didn’t move hell to get them through that. Sans did the impossible by keeping them alive, let alone together.</p><p>And he did keep them together. No matter the cost, no matter what either of them did, <em>always</em>, Sans would never, <em>ever</em> abandon Papyrus. He’d sooner crack open his ribcage like a party popper and let his dust be the confetti inside.</p><p>Apparently, that part of their relationship wasn’t mutual, but Sans wouldn’t learn that for a long time. All he knew that day that he lost his tooth was that he was in pain and covered in dust and he needed to get to Papyrus.</p><p>Sans is the only one who took some goddamned responsibility and didn’t dust on the little kid who needed him. Even when it <em>hurt</em> and he could barely think or even see past the burning agony, he didn’t let himself stop. He wouldn’t let Papyrus’s teeth get knocked out, he decided. He was gonna keep Papyrus <em>safe</em> if he had to…well, Sans didn’t know what he’d have to do, yet. But he knew he’d do it. No holds barred.</p><p>Sans dragged himself home and refused to die that day. He swore again and again to protect the one good thing in his life as he clung to his last HP.</p><p>It was a rough night.</p><p>Papyrus didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he knew his brother was crying and whimpering and holding him too tight; and he cried and screamed with Sans as he shuddered through the early hours of the morning, when everything was too sharp and grating and awful. They didn’t have any healing items for him to get, and Sans wasn’t keeping down food no matter how many times Papyrus tried to force it on him. All he could do was hold on tighter and beg himself not to turn to dust.</p><p>They’re lucky nobody came to put them out of their misery.</p><p>It was Sans who woke up the next morning to the harsh truth of the world: No one can be trusted. Everyone has dust on their hands, and everyone is willing to add to it if they think it’ll give them LOVE. Nothing is ever safe unless you make it that way, and fight tooth and nail to keep it. The only person worth a damn was Sans’s little brother, and Sans wasn’t going to die on him; no, he was going to <em>SAVE</em> Papyrus.</p><p>It wasn’t Sans who left them all alone and too young to survive, but it was Sans who stayed. Who lived. It was Sans who loved his brother something awful.</p><p>It was Sans who was going to take Papyrus away from all of it, and they were going to live somewhere better than this.</p><p>It was an ambitious plan—arrogant, he realizes, looking back. He wishes he could go back and knock the other tooth out of his head for his stupidity; maybe that would’ve changed something. Jostled some practicality loose. It was pure hubris to think he could SAVE anyone. Worse—it was desperation.</p><p>If wishes were stars, they say, monsters would have the sky.</p><p>Sans was a selfish kid, though, and a stuck-up brat, so assured of his own genius. He got the vague idea in mind—<em>get through the Barrier, bring Papyrus somewhere safe</em>—and he clung to it with everything he had, giving up on everything but one precious hope.</p><p>
  <em>heh. the more things change, huh?</em>
</p><p>Sans started building.</p><p>It would take patience, he thought. It would take time, and effort—all he had of both. It would be hard and lonely. He wouldn’t be able to spend his days looking over his shoulder anymore; he’d have to put his brother first, and stop wasting his time. And he did.</p><p>At first, it was all about learning—he was already good, but he needed to get better, get faster. Next, tinkering. Getting recognized; getting a job where he’d have funding and resources. Start climbing the ladder. He could take care of Papyrus better with the start of a promising career under his belt; he could find out what they were working on to get past the Barrier in the Royal Laboratory if he worked there, too. The more valuable he was to the kingdom, the less people would try to hurt him and Papyrus. The less Sans would have to hurt them back.</p><p>Sans became a prodigy, a genius, an investment in the future. He learned how to smile and look young and naïve and not be a threat—threats tended to vanish out of the lab. He learned how to look smarter than he was. He learned how to look stupider.</p><p>He was driven, dedicated, passionate without being ambitious, perfect to leave in a corner with his little machine and bring out when it was time to show off or distract someone.</p><p>Gradually, he was granted free reign of whatever materials and research he needed, as long as he drew up reports to make it look like he was being good and doing what he was supposed to. He could afford rent and food. He added more locks to the door. In a few short years, the long con was already paying off. Papyrus was growing taller every day, healthy and fed and safe.</p><p>Sure, the hours were hard, and Sans was probably a little bit young for it; but it was all about Papyrus. <em>He</em> was all about Papyrus. He was working on a theory of spacial displacement in metaphysics—once he found a way to take a shortcut out of the Barrier, somehow cross it without crossing it, he’d be golden. <em>They’d</em> be golden.</p><p>He could do everything else then, all those things he felt like he was missing. He’d have all the time in the world to coddle Papyrus in person, mess around like a kid, strengthen his HP back up; he’d have the rest of his life to worry about living his life.</p><p>He wouldn’t feel this way anymore, like he was suffocating in the void of space with his safety line cut and no one to call to bring him back down. It would all get better once they <em>got out</em>.</p><p>Papyrus didn’t get it, of course, but he was just a babybones. All he really knew was that Sans wasn’t paying attention to him twenty-four/seven anymore, and he was upset about it. If that was the worst problem in Papyrus’s life, then that was OK with Sans.</p><p>Well, no, it broke his damn heart every time the kid turned that sad expression on him and asked if he really had to stay out late again; but at least Papyrus would never need to understand Sans’s single-minded desperation. If this plan worked out, Papyrus would never have to understand the Underground at all.</p><p>He was so little, he probably wouldn’t even remember it when he was older, Sans thought. Or, fine, maybe he wasn’t <em>that</em> little, but it was all just temporary, just until he could find a way to make it all work. He was the only one looking after them, now, so he had to be willing to do the hard thing sometimes, even when it hurt. A little separation anxiety wouldn’t kill them, but homelessness might.</p><p>Besides, Sans had his eyes on the prize. What was a few months, even a year, even a few years, compared to the rest of their lives? Sans could make such a difference for both of them if he was only willing to sacrifice a little time. A <em>decade</em> of exhaustion and mania and desperation would be worth it, if it meant Papyrus would never have to learn the harsh lessons that Sans already had. And it wouldn’t take a decade to finish this project. Sans was smarter than that, he was quicker. As soon as he could get his theory into practice, their lives would begin.</p><p>It was a slow slide into clarity. It’s amazing how many things fall away when you find the one thing that matters. Sans misses it, sometimes—purpose. An end that can justify any means.</p><p>…well. Not <em>any</em> means. But Sans didn’t know that yet.</p><p>For years, Sans was patient, and hardworking, and steadfast. Sans was a constant at the lab, there before it opened and after it closed. Sans was the perfect scientist, the heart of curious inquiry, intellect realized all in one skeleton. Sans was the future.</p><p>Sans was obsessive. Sans was lonely. Sans was having laughing and crying jags every once in a while, and then maybe once a week, and then a few days in a row sometimes; but he kept it quiet and never let it interfere with his work. Sans was making so much progress. Sans was doing it right.</p><p>Sans was stumbling home to make a late supper; or if he couldn’t get back in time for that, to at least make sure Papyrus made himself some oatmeal or something. Sans was struggling to tear himself away from his work early enough to read a bedtime story, because that was the one time he was guaranteed to see Papyrus. Sans was demonstrably willing to dust any monster that dared to keep him from that sacred time, and then get upset when he wasted half an hour laughing hysterically over their useless dust when he realized <em>he didn’t feel anything about it</em>. He was only unhappy because that was time he could have spent with his brother, and he wasted it on some rando instead.</p><p>Sometimes he’d go back to the lab after getting Papyrus tucked away in bed, if he thought he could get there without drifting off and falling into the lava in Hotland. When he was too tired, he would still make sure to wake up bright and early to put out some cereal for Papyrus before leaving again. He was dedicating all of his waking hours to his goal—he was gonna SAVE his brother. He was gonna do right by Papyrus if it was the last thing he did.</p><p>He still doesn’t know when Papyrus started sneaking out.</p><p>He probably got bored, left to entertain himself while Sans was at work. Maybe he was hoping to make friends. Maybe he just wanted attention—if there had been anyone in the world that he trusted, Sans would have asked someone to stay with Papyrus all day, but he just had no one to call.</p><p>Of course the kid was gonna get bored. Papyrus has always been so fucking smart, just locking the doors from the inside and telling him not to leave wouldn’t keep him in for long. Sans just didn’t know what to leave to occupy a kid for twelve, sixteen, twenty hours a day. Especially not one as active as Papyrus.</p><p>Sans doesn’t know how many times he snuck out, or for how long, before he burst in the door sobbing one night—covered in dust, LV at two instead of its previous immaculate one.</p><p>Sans hadn’t even planned on being home that night. He’d been so close to a breakthrough he could <em>feel</em> it, but his eyes had stopped focusing and he was hearing kind of a ringing in his head that meant that caffeine probably wouldn’t help this time. He’d blinked hard at the notes and mechanical parts in front of him in the dark, empty lab, and he hadn’t been able to summon the will to stay there a second longer.</p><p>Even when he was working for Papyrus, Sans had limits. He needed to see his brother—to talk to him and make sure he was safe and real and he wasn’t just a sleep-deprived hallucination. He needed to rest, just for a moment. Just an instant and he would be fine.</p><p>He’d stop back home for a half hour, he had decided. That was generous; he’d definitely feel better after such a long break. He’d ask if Papyrus wanted a late bedtime story.</p><p>Once he saw his brother, he’d be sorted out. It wasn’t burnout, it wasn’t crashing, it wasn’t that Sans was obsessive or grieving or <em>crazy</em> or anything—he’d probably just misheard who people were talking about when they said that, anyway, because who cared what Sans was doing, he was <em>fine</em>—he just needed to check on Papyrus for a little bit and recharge. He wasn’t some broken little child prodigy, twisted by a hard life until he had a clean break from reality. Sans was practically an adult. He was taking care of his brother and there was <em>nothing wrong with him</em>. Fuck all those guys, anyway—they didn’t understand.</p><p>His desperation to finish the damned machine was just being briefly, <em>temporarily</em> outweighed by his desperation to see his only guiding light; to remind himself that this was all worth it. He just needed to reassure himself that what he was doing was necessary—was <em>right</em>. After all, what kind of monster can meet the only person in the world worth saving and then fail to give it their all? He was doing this for Papyrus—he just had to remember how important that was.</p><p>He’d just gotten home; hadn’t even had time to realize Papyrus was missing before Sans’s precious light burst through the front door with his first kill already under his belt.</p><p>Sans looked his innocent little brother in the SOUL; he saw Papyrus’s LOVE up a tick, he saw his own <em>failure</em>.</p><p>Papyrus had hurt someone, because Sans didn’t protect him like he promised he would, because Sans didn’t save him in time to prevent it.</p><p>It wasn’t Papyrus’s fault, not really; it was all Sans. He didn’t prevent Papyrus from sneaking out into the world where it was <em>dangerous</em> and he could have been <em>killed</em>—and oh, <em>he could have been killed</em>. Sans would have never known what happened to him. His little brother, his <em>everything</em> would have just vanished in the night. All because Sans didn’t protect him.</p><p>If it was all Sans’s fault, then it was in his control, and he could make it stop and never happen again. It was simple. Clear. Sans liked simple and clear. The world is bad and Papyrus is good so Papyrus needs to be protected from the world. Sans didn’t protect Papyrus well enough so Papyrus killed somebody and Sans needs to protect him better so this <em>never happens ever again</em>.</p><p>Papyrus was scared and he <em>could have died</em>. Papyrus could have died.</p><p>He had the thought that he didn’t want to get angry with Papyrus. That had sharpened up crystal clear in his head—he kind of wanted to strangle the kid for scaring him like that, scream at him, do <em>anything </em>to make sure he never even <em>thinks </em>about scaring Sans like that again—but he didn’t want to give in to that urge. He didn’t want to hurt his brother.</p><p>Clearly, Papyrus was already upset enough. Sans didn’t want to scare him. He wouldn’t know what to do if he made his little brother flinch from him, like some kids did from their caretakers. He couldn’t let himself get mad. Even if it was <em>awful</em> and it was <em>all his fault</em>, he couldn’t get mad.</p><p>For all of his flaws, Sans never, ever raised a finger to hurt Papyrus when Paps was his responsibility. After Papyrus grew up and took charge, sure, but never before.</p><p>In the world he grew up in, that’s saying something—even Papyrus can’t claim the same of him, or of the human. Sans might be the only person he knows who has never physically or magically harmed someone under his care. He’s always been a lousy disciplinarian.</p><p>But damn it, he was <em>this close</em> to flipping his fucking lid that night. He couldn’t even tell whose bones were rattling loud enough to wake the dead—he and Papyrus and the room were all shaking, or maybe that was just the jitters. He legitimately could not tell if he was experiencing shock or an earthquake.</p><p>He could talk to Papyrus about sneaking out later, he decided—when they were both calmer (Sans never felt calm anymore). He didn’t know how to do the whole parenting thing; he wasn’t much older than Papyrus, really. Just enough to count.</p><p>Sans didn’t know what to do. So he dived further into his clarity.</p><p>Instead of yelling and screaming at him to <em>never ever scare me like that again</em>, which would just terrify Papyrus more, Sans decided to attack the root of the problem. Papyrus only killed somebody because he snuck out. He only snuck out because he was all alone. He was only alone because Sans wasn’t ever home. Sans could fix that. Sans could be home all the time once he finished his machine and got them <em>out</em>.</p><p>Hell, Papyrus only needed to kill someone because they were still Underground—once they crossed the Barrier, Papyrus could sneak out all he wanted and Sans would yell at him because it would be safer, there, and there would be nothing to be afraid of, and he wouldn’t be so goddamned terrified of losing the kid that he’s afraid to say anything that might hurt that fragile, delicate little SOUL.</p><p>Papyrus knew what he did was wrong, and he faced the consequences of it, Sans convinced himself. There was no need to pile onto that. This could all be put behind them. Sans didn’t need to be the bad guy, he didn’t need to hurt Papyrus, didn’t need to scare him. He didn’t need to hurt the only spot of good in his life. He just needed to fix everything and make it all better. Forever.</p><p>Really, the whole thing must have happened because Sans was distracted.</p><p>He should have been at the lab. He should have been finished with the machine already. It was all because he was tearing his time in two between checking over his brother, and fretting about him when he was supposed to be working, always just a little bit off—he did his best work when he didn’t even remember he <em>had</em> a brother, when there was nothing but him and the machine and the rules he needed to break. He worked even better when he forgot about himself.</p><p>Absolute clarity came closer and closer to Sans as he thought about it, as he <em>understood</em>. He knew what he needed to do. He knew what he needed to do to make everything right. It was all gonna be OK again. He knew how he was gonna make it that way.</p><p>Sans needed to not worry about ‘Sans’ and ‘Papyrus’ for a little while. He needed to worry about physics and rules and laws that could be manipulated and broken. This was the real test, this whole time, and he’d been failing so badly that he didn’t even see it!</p><p>He thought he was loving his brother by providing food and a place to sleep and reading bedtime stories—sure, the first two were necessary, but <em>Sans</em> didn’t need to be there for it. Papyrus would be no less fed if Sans didn’t feed him, just as long as Sans kept food in the pantry and a roof overhead. Papyrus didn’t need him to be there to survive.</p><p>Every time Sans left the lab to visit Papyrus, the machine didn’t get worked on until he came back. Breakthroughs were missed. Time was lost that he would never get back, time that Papyrus wasn’t SAVED, time spent choking on dust when they could be <em>safe</em>, maybe even <em>happy</em>.</p><p>It was all so clear. Sans was abandoning his duty to his brother every time he returned home. He was being unforgivably selfish.</p><p>Did Sans love his brother enough to turn away from him? Did he want what was best for his brother, or did he selfishly want to smother the kid with time and affection until it caught up to him and got them both killed? How long could they stay here before their luck ran out, one day, and one of them really didn’t come home?</p><p>Sans did want to stay home with Papyrus, all the time. He wanted time with his brother, he wanted to talk to Papyrus, wanted to coddle him and play with him and hear about his days and his daydreams like they were both still kids. He wanted that so bad it felt like a physical pull when he left, coaxing him to turn around, to rest, to stay. To give up.</p><p>But that wasn’t what was best for Papyrus. That was what was best for Sans. And that wasn’t important yet; not until he finished the machine.</p><p>He’d come back home that night to get a last push of motivation, to overcome his exhaustion and loneliness and his last natural limits—well, he’d found what he was looking for.</p><p>The longer Papyrus stayed, Sans realized—the longer the both of them remained Underground with all the other monsters, the more warped they would become. Already Sans had forgotten the importance of his task, so slowly it seemed like work had always come second to coming home every night—but never again. He was going to SAVE Papyrus. He was going to SAVE them both, before what gnawed on the edges of his mind consumed them.</p><p>Sans never said he wasn’t a coward. <em>selfish little kid</em>, right? But he didn’t know how to fix things when they broke. He just knew that he needed to make them stop breaking.</p><p>Without his clarity, being the soft bastard that he is, Sans can see that things got worse between them after that night. Not as bad as some families, or even as bad as most—locking your kid away is pretty standard for any guardian that gives a damn in their world, and Sans at least made sure Papyrus was fed and clothed and had something to do when he was gone—but things got to being…not good. The kind of not-good that makes Papyrus hate him to this day.</p><p>Sans was never meant to be a parent. Not at that age; out of stripes on a technicality because he needed to be an adult to work. Maybe not ever, though he likes to think he had his moments with the human.</p><p>A part of him still wants to shake Papyrus and scream that he<em> didn’t know any better, never wanted this, you weren’t exactly an angel either, it’s not fair that it’s all my fault just because I didn’t know how else to keep us alive! I was hurting, too!</em></p><p>It wouldn’t make a difference. Papyrus knows; he just doesn’t care. And to be fair, that’s probably about what Sans deserves.</p><p>Sans was barely a person at that point; mostly just sheer, unmitigated ‘clarity.’ He was just trying to keep Papyrus <em>safe</em>. He won’t apologize for that. But what he did later…what he failed to do…</p><p>Papyrus has a right to never forgive him, and he’s exercising that right to its fullest extent.</p><p>But. Back then, after that night. That was a turning point. It was close to the end.</p><p>Sans started locking the doors from the outside as well as the inside when he left. He applied his theories, testing out the ‘shortcut’ he wanted to create across the Barrier, and soon he didn’t need to use doors at all. <em>good</em>, he thought.</p><p>Papyrus would never need to be exposed to the dangers outside of their home, because Sans was gonna get him out. Best to just keep him where he was safe and sound, for the time being. Best not to even <em>have</em> doors that go out, or windows, or peepholes—all weaknesses in the walls between Papyrus and death.</p><p>Plenty of kids don’t even leave their rooms until they’re nearly out of stripes—sure, those kids usually grow up to be nervous around strangers and wide open spaces, but strangers and wide open spaces are both treacherous and deadly, anyway; so that’s probably just common sense, he reasoned. Papyrus didn’t need to go outside. It was dangerous out there. It was only for a few more months.</p><p>Papyrus didn’t understand, insisting that Sans didn’t trust him anymore, didn’t love him, wanted to shut him away and forget about him.</p><p>That stung. Sans sacrificed his whole life for this kid, and Papyrus claimed that he didn’t even care? He tried not to take it personally. Papyrus was just having some rough years—Sans would have been a hellion at that age, too, if he hadn’t been busy working to try to provide for Papyrus.</p><p>Sans didn’t have time to explain that he was doing all of this <em>because</em> he loved him—he tried, once or twice, but Papyrus didn’t get it, anyway. He was just a kid. He would understand when he was older. He would see that it was all worth it once Sans got them <em>out</em>; he would be happy again, and smile again, and he would never hurt ever again. Sans was gonna SAVE him.</p><p>It didn’t matter that he screamed and cried and eventually started breaking things, too; throwing pots and plates at Sans when he came home after a straight week at the lab. Papyrus was just in pain because Sans was <em>taking too long</em>.</p><p>Each time, Sans would dodge, and he wouldn’t get mad because none of this was Papyrus’s <em>fault</em>, he was just upset, it was just this whole damned world that was hurting him and he was taking it out on Sans because that’s what kids do. It just meant that Sans had to hurry up and stop dithering at home and get back to the lab. Back to work. Every minute he spent with Papyrus was another minute that Papyrus was in pain, living in hell because Sans hadn’t found a way to fix things yet.</p><p>Sans would leave home each time he visited with more desperation and less sleep. He didn’t have crying jags anymore, or laughing fits, and never felt the urge to scream and scream and scream until somebody finally came. He didn’t waste his time with that. He was focused, he was good. He’d found his clarity.</p><p>Soon it had been a month since he’d seen Papyrus awake, having only dropped off groceries and stolen guilty, wasted seconds to just check on him while he was asleep. Those checks were his one concession to weakness. Sans was selfish, and he needed to know that Papyrus was safe, that what he was doing wasn’t <em>really</em> hurting him.</p><p>It wasn’t. His HP was fine and as long as he stayed inside, his LOVE didn’t rise, either. He wasn’t hurting anyone and no one was hurting him—he was safe until Sans could finish. Papyrus was just a lost, angry kid who didn’t know what was good for him.</p><p>Sans did love him, and Papyrus knew that, deep down. He loved him so much, it felt like he was going crazy.</p><p>He needed to finish the machine.</p><p>It made Sans feel better and so much worse to imagine that Papyrus slept better with him around.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter will outline the buildup to and fallout from what Red/Sans considers to be The Worst Decision Of His Life. Finally, the last chapter should pick up in tone; it's a bit gentler than the first two. That's nearly complete, but I think I'll be updating Whither Then first, just to take a break from the heaviness--or maybe I should get this all out fast and return to Whither Then for healing afterwards? Red's in next chapter of that, too, he's just marginally saner in WT.</p><p>...it's a thin margin. But he wears it well!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. if you're so smart, tell me why are you still so afraid?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sans goes home.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>HELLO. As a warning: this chapter is the darkest part of the whole series. There's a hopeful-ish end (more in line with Whither Then's tone), but it's pretty rough in the middle. So, if you would like to skip to the more lighthearted Frisk parts, I'll be posting that as a separate oneshot, to try to keep the darkest point in the series skippable for ppl who are just here for found family fluff.</p><p>Content warnings for this chapter:<br/>Suicidal ideation (no attempt), contemplations of mass murder/genocide, self-hate, depressive episode, brief mention of eating issues as a result of depression, violent coping mechanisms, dysfunctional family relationships, dysfunctional handling of mental illness. Nothing gets graphic but it does get dark.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Here’s the thing about time: time is awful.</p><p>It just passes, or unpasses, or skips and halts, and then you wake up and you’re midway through a lab day (every day is a lab day, which is another thing that sucks about time). You wake up, even though you weren’t sleeping, and you realize that this lab day is special, actually; this lab day is an important lab day, this lab day is the most important day of your life, because you’ve done it. You’ve solved it all. The interminable sprint against reality and sanity is finally just <em>over</em>.</p><p>On the same day that each and every one of his coworkers vanished, Sans came back to himself, blinking blearily and struggling to bring the corners of his vision into focus, as the world seemed to sway around him. He realized that he knew what he needed to do. He’d put together the last piece of the puzzle, gotten that final iota of data, balanced the most important equation.</p><p>He didn’t know whether the disappearances were accidental or malicious, whether inter-office politics got all of his coworkers signed up as test subjects for somebody else’s experiment, or just plain bad luck. Probably bad luck, since he didn’t see a survivor around taking notes, but hell, he didn’t know. Sans had never been a part of water-cooler chats—everyone working in the lab wanted to use its discoveries to save themselves, and screw everyone who got left behind. Why get friendly with people like that when Sans had something so much more important to do?</p><p>Besides, if he ever had time for socializing, it would go straight to Papyrus. He <em>missed</em> his little brother, missed him with a physical ache that dug into his spine at the throat. Even if Papyrus screamed and fought, Sans was so desperate to see him again. To be <em>done</em>.</p><p>And the day of the disappearances, he cracked it. He solved the puzzle. And no one was around to stop him.</p><p>Sans couldn’t cross the Barrier, no; but he could get to a better place. He’d found an alternate universe, a world just like his. But not like his at all.</p><p>In that world, monsters lived in a peaceful utopia behind the Barrier, and hardly ever dusted at all. It was a place where Papyrus’s LOVE would already be high of average, so he definitely wouldn’t have to gain any more, ever again. He wouldn’t need to be strong, wouldn’t need to be protected with walls and barbed wire and a love that was more like a wounded animal. In that world, Papyrus would be safe.</p><p>Sans and Papyrus just had to get there, and they could live with the other monsters for long, happy lives—maybe the Barrier there would fall, maybe it wouldn’t. Sans didn’t care. He’d solved it, he’d solved <em>everything</em>, and all it had taken was several years and the disappearance of nearly everyone he’d spoken to or interacted with during those years.</p><p>Well, the disappearances themselves didn’t really help in terms of peer review, but Sans was never much into that, anyway. Realizing all of his coworkers had gotten tossed out of existence provided him with data, which was much more important. He knew how to get out of his reality. With his machine, he could manage to get a better result than they did, and aim to land in the other universe he’d chosen. He’d found the solution.</p><p>But that solution, itself, was a problem.</p><p>Before Sans could even contemplate <em>what now</em>, now that his reason for living had been totally solved and he was in danger of running out of clear, logical steps to take, he ran across the one little hiccup that could bring the whole thing crashing down.</p><p>Power was the issue.</p><p>Throwing something into the void between worlds would destroy it—scatter it across all of time and space, until the fact of its existence was more of a flickering fiction. The others in the lab hadn’t aimed anywhere more specific than “out,” from what he could guess, and their machine ran out of power before they could land anywhere.</p><p>Sans could fix part of that—he was aiming somewhere specific, and not all too far away, on a multiversal scale. The trip would be short. But he’d need something to come with the two of them, a portable source of power to shield them from dropping out of reality entirely before they could land.</p><p>A human SOUL might do the trick, if he didn’t mind it shattering in the process, but it would be risky—just barely enough power, or just barely too little, for one person’s protection. The SOULs collected by the king were no good, anyway; Sans would have just taken them and crossed the Barrier ages ago if that he had a snowball’s chance in Hotland of getting to them. So would any other monster in existence. Those SOULs were better protected than anything in the Underground.</p><p>No, if Sans were to send even a single person through the machine, he would need to harvest energy from a different source—which he could do, if he were to set everything up just right. It would be like electrocuting a swimming pool, but in reverse—a point of contact, some conductors, and he’d reach every corner of the Underground. The LOVE of monsterkind was strong, even strong enough to beat out a human SOUL, from what he’d heard. He’d convert everything in his reach into pure magical energy, essentially vaporize it all, and he’d have enough to power his machine for just long enough for one trip.</p><p>He would have to work at it, but he could set up enough lines of collection to dust every monster in the Underground in a single instant. No chance to fight it, no one left to stop him. And it wasn’t like his coworkers were gonna notice him preparing it.</p><p>He could even insulate the lab and survive the extinction event he’d be orchestrating, if he wanted to. He’d be the only monster left alive in the Underground. It’s almost funny—how’s that for ‘kill or be killed’?</p><p>The LOVE of every monster in existence, all of their SOULs, would be converted to pure power. It would be a massive source of violent energy scrapped together from every desperate survivalist in the Underground. Even then, the collective LOVE of all monsters would only be enough to protect one lone traveler on a one-way trip.</p><p>There was a possibility that once the two worlds were connected, once a single trip was made safely, travel between the two would become easier…but not easy enough to do it without a second power surge. Sans would need to wait for another human to fall, or else find a way to stretch the magic he collected from the rest of the Underground to cover a second trip.</p><p>Speaking practically, it was safer to assume that this would be a one-person voyage, and anyone left behind would rot in an empty, dusty wasteland long before finding a way to follow. Waiting eternally before they eventually blew into dust with the rest of the monsters, indistinguishable and abandoned. Forever.</p><p>…it’s not his favorite thing to think about.</p><p>The thing about time is that time is the worst, and Sans doesn’t want it without his brother.</p><p>So he had a choice to make.</p><p>Here’s another thing. Here’s a thing about physics: The multiverse is big, and infinite.</p><p>The multiverse is so big that in some world, a version of every person exists that’s different, in some small way—a version that’s made a different choice at every junction in their life. Coffee or tea or milk or nothing, one morning. Kill your neighbor just to feel their dust or pass them by quietly on another afternoon.</p><p>There are more important differences, too—there are Sanses out there whose brothers would die but not kill for them; there are Papyri out there whose brothers stand by and watch them get cut down. When Sans saw the choice in front of him, he knew that there were other Sanses out there faced with the same options, struggling to decide: who am i? what am i capable of?</p><p>If there exists a version of you who’s done something terrible, does that mean that it’s in your nature to do terrible things? Or by being the version who didn’t do that, are you somehow better than that other you?</p><p>Sans <em>felt</em> it, then—the existence of a parallel universe so very close to his own. A universe that diverged from his at this exact point, and not another. A reality where everything was the same, but Sans was just that little bit <em>better</em>.</p><p>He could feel that other Sans—the Sans who was selfless, who put his brother first just one more time, just long enough to pull the trigger on his whole world. The Sans who was willing to give up his only family to a better life somewhere he couldn’t follow. The Sans who was capable of the wholesale slaughter of his people.</p><p>That, he realized, was where his clarity led. That was the end he’d been chasing for years. Sans, alone, surrounded by dust. Or dead, sacrificing his life for the power to SAVE his brother, because he couldn’t stand being left behind alive.</p><p>It led to Papyrus, safe and set to stay that way for a long, happy life. Papyrus, never screaming and crying, his walls free of scratches and claw marks. Papyrus, completely unprotected because he wouldn’t <em>need</em> to be kept safe.</p><p>A world where Sans didn’t need to be the one to keep them alive anymore—they could just be <em>brothers</em> again. Bedtime stories and midnight conversations and playful roughhousing that never did a single HP of damage.</p><p>Sans could feel the tug of clarity, leading him onward, urging him to just <em>do it</em>. Finish it, finish everything, <em>finally</em> succeed at something. Finally do the right thing, for once, without hurting the one person he’s trying to protect.</p><p>This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? This was a dream come true. This was everything, he’d done it, he’d finally been good enough, it could all finally <em>end</em>. He was so tired. He wanted it to be over. He didn’t want to be in the lab anymore, in his too-big coat with the quiet ticking of experiments that would never be completed surrounding him. He could be done. Would it really be so bad?</p><p>But…was that what he wanted?</p><p>It was what he’d worked for for what felt like forever, but…</p><p>No.</p><p>No, it wasn’t what he wanted.</p><p>Sans was a selfish kid—selfish adult, by that point, but he hadn’t changed much. He should want to SAVE his brother, no matter the cost. What he really wanted was…</p><p>He wanted to go home. He wanted his brother. He wanted to grab Papyrus and curl up on the bed and read him a story.</p><p>He didn’t want to make this choice. He wanted to be the Sans who never discovered this. He wanted to be the Sans who never even had to look for it. He wanted to be the Sans in the softer universe with stars in his eyes and a brother who didn’t hate him so badly that just seeing Sans made him scream and cry or run away and hide.</p><p>Sans wanted anything at all but this.</p><p>Mostly, he wanted Papyrus.</p><p>He was numb, watching from the outside as he clutched his notes. He read uselessly over the math, again and again—he already knew what he would find. He knew exactly what kind of power he needed, and how to get it. The only way to get it.</p><p>He thought about parallel universes. He wondered which one was going to be his, what he was going to choose. Who he would choose to be.</p><p>He couldn’t be that gentle Sans, not if he tried for the rest of his life. But he could be the Sans to SAVE his brother. He could be the good-enough Sans, the Sans that couldn’t protect his brother from an awful world but who did redeem himself, in the end. He could be the Sans who loved his brother enough to do what was best for him, even when it made his whole being quail to think about it.</p><p>Sans was not exactly the quailing type, but he never thought he’d be the contemplating-genocide type, either. He never thought he’d have an opportunity like that. But there was no one else who could make this choice—there was no one else, period. Sans was alone. If he went through with his plan, he’d be alone for a long, long time.</p><p>But Papyrus wouldn’t be.</p><p>Maybe, possibly, he could even join Papyrus, some day, in that other world. Maybe Papyrus’s trip would degrade the wall between worlds more than Sans was predicting. Maybe a human would fall. Maybe if he was very lucky, this Sans could be the Sans who, despite everything, scraped out a happy ending.</p><p>…maybe he could deliberately, methodically kill hundreds of people, and then steal their very lives’ energy. Maybe he could turn hundreds of individual monsters struggling to survive into dust, and then spit on their lives as he used them for his own purposes.</p><p>Sans always hated killing people.</p><p>…did it matter what Sans wanted? What anyone wanted? He wasn’t in the labs because he liked them. He needed to do this.</p><p><em>for papyrus, for papyrus</em>, murmured his one guiding drive. The single, desperate focus that had consumed his life and his mind. It tethered him to this world, to sanity, to absolute obsession. It was everything.</p><p>Who cared about the lives of a bunch of monsters? They were killers and traitors and LOVEsick freaks, the lot of them. Monsterkind—not circumstance, not bad luck, but the deliberate viciousness of monsters—was behind all the suffering Sans and Papyrus had ever gone through, and a lot more pain besides. Monsters reveled in violence and sought no redemption—everyone knew that.</p><p>Why <em>shouldn’t</em> Sans wipe them out? It was what they deserved. It was more than they deserved, to be able to use their wasted lives for one good thing. It would be the perfect karmic retribution against a bunch of self-serving murderers, being used to SAVE the one monster who was worth something.</p><p>After everything he’d sacrificed already, it should have been easy.</p><p>There are no words strong enough for Sans’s disappointment, his <em>disgust</em> with himself at the moment that he realized he couldn’t do it.</p><p>He just couldn’t do it. He knew it would get easier once he got started…but he couldn’t kill them. Even knowing that not a single one of those bastards could be trusted, even with everyone he could possibly be attached to already gone, even with the crumbling HP and broken tooth to prove that this was an awful, heartless world that never had and never would apologize…</p><p>He couldn’t kill them all. He couldn’t even bring himself to <em>try</em>.</p><p>Sans couldn’t finish his life’s work. So he did something else, something he’d never done before, instead. Sans made a brand new choice that changed his life.</p><p>Sans gave up, that day.</p><p>His patience, his ambition, his drive—he set it all down in a plain lab folder, encoded and hidden away, and he turned off all the lights and locked all the doors and walked out of the lab with the only key still in existence tucked safely in his pocket. There wasn’t a speck of dust on him.</p><p>He could have fixed that.</p><p>He didn’t.</p><p>Sans went home, instead. He dragged himself home to Papyrus like he was a lost kid again, reeling from a fatal blow and clutching tight to the only thing that mattered. Maybe they sensed how close he was to snapping and killing them all, because nobody bothered him on the way back home.</p><p>He let himself in the front door. It hadn’t been used in a long time, but his keys still worked on all the locks. He had a lot of keys.</p><p>When he walked in, his brother was awake, for the first time in…some amount of time. Papyrus appeared around a corner to investigate the noise just as Sans opened the door.</p><p>Sans could tell the moment it registered that he was really, actually back, using the front door and walking in like he owned the place, because Papyrus’s wariness washed into a wild snarl. He lunged forward like he was going to attack—he was furious. Sans didn’t mind.</p><p>He closed the door behind him and stood just inside, not sure where to go now that he’d reached his brother.</p><p>He let Papyrus scream at him and call him every name in the book, let him run out of steam and lapse back into silence. Papyrus didn’t actually attack him, just stalked and circled and shook Sans by the lapels of his undone lab coat. Sans watched and couldn’t quite dredge up a reaction.</p><p>He tried to think of something to say, or to do, but his clarity had broken and left him reeling in the real world. It was hard to understand that Papyrus was somehow right there, in front of him—that he had been there the whole time. He’d been so far away, before, hadn’t he? He’d been unreachable. But without ever leaving the sanctuary that Sans had left him in, he’d somehow appeared right in front of Sans, looming and threatening and <em>right there</em>.</p><p>The idea that Sans could just reach out and touch him—that Papyrus <em>was</em> reaching out and touching him, twisting his fingers in Sans’s coat and shirt, pushing him without near enough force to hurt, gripping his upper arms and shaking him ‘til he rattled—it was incomprehensible.</p><p>They stayed like that for a while, two strangers in the same home. Maybe Papyrus was shaking. Maybe Sans was.</p><p>It was a while before Papyrus looked up from the floor, still clutching Sans’s oil-stained t-shirt from where he’d last shaken him and threatened to kill him. He pulled Sans forward off the wall and quietly told him to say something. Anything.</p><p>Papyrus was taller than him, at that point—must have been for a while. Sans hadn’t noticed. Was he supposed to be out of stripes already? It seemed too soon.</p><p><em>this is the life i’m damning</em>, Sans thought. <em>papyrus. it’s papyrus.</em></p><p>His brother’s name should have spurred him to action. It always had before, bringing a sharp and killing desperation that drove him to any height. It should have brought his clarity back, put everything into focus until his doubts and weakness washed away.</p><p>But somewhere in him, Sans knew he’d already made his choice.</p><p>He just…missed his brother. He just wanted to come home and be with his little brother again, to take back all those years and tell his childhood self that the answer he found would be <em>no, you can’t save him. don’t even bother. you’ll be a coward, and you won’t be able to save him.</em></p><p>Except that he could SAVE Papyrus. He was perfectly able to. He was <em>one step</em> from the finish line. He just wouldn’t take that step, because he was too damned selfish to give his little brother up.</p><p>He’d never, in any of his plans, thought they’d be separated when he succeeded. Never once.</p><p>Sans hit his knees on the floor in front of his sniffling, brave, <em>hurt</em> little brother. He clutched onto whatever was close and he hit the floor and he stayed there.</p><p>He stayed there for a long time.</p><p>It was peaceful. In the absence of clarity, Sans drifted.</p><p>…</p><p>When Sans came to, he was in Snowdin.</p><p>He learned that Papyrus was paying rent on a house through a mix of Sans’s coworkers’ backpay—somehow, being the only person who existed also made him the only person credited on anyone’s discoveries, and the only viable recipient of their salaries—and by terrorizing the landlord into keeping a reasonable cap on costs.</p><p>Snowdin was supposed to be a gang-filled wasteland, but apparently Paps did something about that, too.</p><p>Sans’s brother dragged the two of them out to the boonies and made himself a reputation. Papyrus had clout, the fear of anyone foolish enough to cross his path, high LOVE, money; even a position in the Royal Guard, before long. He had everything that mattered in their world.</p><p>Sans watched the end result without really understanding how it happened.</p><p>Sans had seen another world. A different world. A world he would never, ever reach.</p><p>He nearly turned away over it; nearly Fell Down quietly like some kind of pathetic loser, unable to cope with his failure.</p><p>Papyrus could tell, somehow. He knew everything. He knew that Sans had failed to protect him, that he’d had a chance to save him and he’d been too selfish to take it, to let him go. He had to know. That was why he resented Sans—<em>hated</em> him in a way that Sans never thought was possible.</p><p>Papyrus made sure he knew it, too—that he was worthless. Papyrus was only too happy to tell him that he was pathetic, sitting and staring at the wall like he was expecting it to change in front of him. If he’d ever been any good as a brother or a monster, he’d <em>get up</em> and <em>do something</em>. Not that Papyrus expected <em>that</em>. Clearly, if Papyrus started expecting the bare minimum from him, Sans would only disappoint.</p><p>Papyrus said shit like that all the time.</p><p>He said it while he brought home good, fire-magic-cooked food every night, easy to eat and delicious because Sans rarely bothered with meals that required any effort at all.</p><p>He kept saying it when he had to give up on solid food and just crammed liquids into Sans’s face, so he had to absorb the magic of whatever was in his mouth or else he’d choke and get sticky and gross(er). Papyrus tried pretty much anything that could be forced through Sans’s teeth and had enough content in it to keep him alive. Sans still hates the taste of ketchup.</p><p>He said stuff like that when he grabbed Sans by the hood of the thick, fluffy jacket he couldn’t remember acquiring and brought him up to the room full of cardboard boxes that Sans guessed belonged to him, and dumped him on the bare mattress. Then he turned off the lights and left for some amount of time. Sans could never be sure if either of them slept.</p><p>He said it in the morning, when he came home from patrol and dragged Sans back out of that room, putting him on the couch or near the kitchen instead. No matter where he ended up, Sans was always in the way, and Papyrus would trip over him or walk by him and get pissed all over again. He was always ready to remind Sans that he was a useless deadweight.</p><p>Sans would never have said stuff like that to Papyrus—never. Not even in the early days, when he was dead sure that he was gonna starve and dust because he was stupid enough to try to keep his little brother fed and safe, too. But Papyrus didn’t care what Sans wouldn’t have done. He spent those months telling Sans just what he thought of him, and he was right. He was right about all of it.</p><p>Papyrus never let Sans forget that he was choosing to fail at being a brother; that if he could only swallow genocide, if he could only let Papyrus <em>go</em>, if only he would <em>do something</em>, things would be OK. That Sans had let himself fall to this point; that he’d just given up one day for no real <em>reason</em> and he was pathetic. That anyone else would be able to just get up and do what needed to be done, but no, Sans had to be weak and selfish and cruel. Sans was doing this to both of them.</p><p>Papyrus was at least merciful enough that he never outright mentioned the machine. Or alternate universes. But that had to be what he meant—Sans’s one, colossal failure, the one thing that Papyrus was absolutely willing to hate him for. His inaction, when he should have just done the right thing for once. His selfishness that he refused to fix.</p><p>He could do it right. He could go get his notes, his machine, and do it all right. He could do it at any time. But he never would.</p><p>If Sans were to dust, Papyrus would probably be happy, Sans thought. He should be. Or he’d be annoyed about having to clean up. He was always yelling at Sans to clean his shit and wash his socks and feed the mangy cat Paps’d brought home one day and insisted was Sans’s pet.</p><p>Sometimes, Sans would even drift over and begin to do one of those things, before he realized he was selfish and awful and damning his brother to a life in hell when he didn’t have to, and what was the point of household fucking chores when he could never, ever make up for his failures, and then he’d be on the floor again with Papyrus screaming at him to at least eat, damn it, you useless fucking pile of bones, it’s been days.</p><p>Those were dark times. Sans doesn’t know how long it lasted. Papyrus probably does, down to the day.</p><p>Eventually, something gave—Sans just didn’t have the energy to sit there blankly and hate himself while Papyrus was screaming at him. Not forever.</p><p>It started with a simple motion, one that Sans was only halfway sure of.</p><p>Shocking both of them, Sans successfully picked up his socks one day, and put them in the wash.</p><p>He picked up the detergent.</p><p>He poured some amount on top of the socks. Learning how to use the little measuring cup seemed like a lot, so he just poured from the bottle until he figured he had enough.</p><p>He closed the washer.</p><p>He hit ‘Start.’</p><p>He didn’t mess with the settings, but he did laundry. He did the bare minimum.</p><p>Papyrus didn’t know what to do with this development. <em>Sans</em> didn’t know what to do with this development. He almost started to sit back down again before Papyrus grabbed him by the collar. That was another thing he didn’t remember getting.</p><p>To be fair, he’s pretty sure he lost a lot of time. He still doesn’t quite know how he got to Snowdin in the first place—did Papyrus cart him along in a box with the rest of their useless garbage?</p><p>Anyway. The day he did the laundry, Papyrus didn’t let him sit back down on the floor, which was kind of too bad. Sans had wanted to lean against the machine and feel it moving. Proof that he did something.</p><p>Instead, Papyrus dragged him straight out to a sentry station that was even more in the middle of nowhere than Snowdin already was, and announced that he was a sentry now, effective immediately. No more lazing around at home doing nothing. He would report directly to Papyrus and watch for humans. He would not stray from the station and he would be precisely there, unharmed, at any point that Papyrus decided to stop by and check on him, Or Else. The canine guard would leave him alone, unless he actually found a human, in which case he would go send someone else to get killed while he went to Snowdin and got Papyrus. He had better not forget those rules or he’d <em>wish</em> a human had dusted him.</p><p>Sans quietly thought that Papyrus hated him too much to even let him die…but if that was his punishment for failing to save his brother from their world, then he’d accept it.</p><p>Sans started trying again.</p><p>Not a lot, of course. The mangy stray had to feed itself (and later, when the brothers acquired a mangy stray human, they fed themself too, mostly). Sans’s new sentry job was doable because it was basically just sitting there and doing nothing for a few hours, and then Papyrus would come by and tell him off for how terribly he did the nothing. Business as usual. It was kind of nice to get out of the house sometimes, though. He got to stare at the trees instead of the walls.</p><p>After a while, he got bored enough to wander from his station and start bitching at the door in the middle of nowhere, and after a few too many dark jokes, the door joked back. Then his sentry job was almost kind of fun, sometimes. The old lady was good company when she wasn’t off her rocker.</p><p>Papyrus didn’t hate him less with time, and both of their LOVE only grew as days and months and a few years went by. Sans didn’t avoid it anymore.</p><p>What was the point in not hurting anyone? All of these guilty fuckers deserved some pain; it wasn’t like he was torturing innocents. So what if his LOVE doubled, or tripled? Watching those numbers tick higher didn’t exactly have him jumping for joy, because he wasn’t some kind of LOVE-hungry freak, but that was Sans’s sentence for his sins. If his new stats made him miserable, that meant that he was suffering for his failure. It was the only justice he would ever know.</p><p>Did he have a right to complain when he’d failed his little brother so fucking badly that Papyrus’s LOVE was higher than Sans’s? Sans was never as good as Papyrus. It was only fair to follow his brother down that path, even if it wasn’t what he’d wanted way back when.</p><p>
  <em>heh. but we all know i’m not that selfless.</em>
</p><p>Sometimes it made him feel better to watch those bastards dust, and he’d laugh as they snarled and fought like their lives were worth something. It felt <em>good</em>, playing executioner. It was a rush like nothing else. Sometimes it even felt like he could kill enough to make his little corner of the world <em>right</em>. Good people live and bad people die and Sans takes out the trash.</p><p>Sometimes he’d revel in the idea that he could deliver death to the people who made his world like this, so different from the safe little world he’d seen. Sometimes it was a thrill to kill the people who hurt his little brother—and it wasn’t like any of them were innocent. It wasn’t like they didn’t deserve it.</p><p>Other times, he’d wake up in the morning and barely recognize himself in the mirror. Papyrus would move around him cautiously, warily, would conveniently reschedule anything that involved Sans interacting with other monsters, like he wasn’t sure Sans wouldn’t snap and kill everyone in sight. Not like he hadn’t thought about it before, right?</p><p>…after a while, all of the mirrors migrated to Papyrus’s room. The better to admire his striking visage.</p><p>They got by. Not well and not happily, but Sans and Papyrus survived everything thrown at them—Sans got friendly with the locals and cut down anyone who grumbled with any real intent about Papyrus; Papyrus laid down the law and demanded that it be followed. For a while, Snowdin was practically stable.</p><p>Sans never forgot the choice he’d made. He still remembers that he had a chance to SAVE his brother, the only family he has, and he gave it up for the sake of sparing the ungrateful, <em>evil</em> monsters around him, who sneer and mutter behind Papyrus’s back, who set traps and ambushes, who force him to kill them anyway just to keep his little fucked-up family safe. Even as he smiled at them, ready with a joke or a chuckle, Sans knew that not one of them deserved it.</p><p>Papyrus could be a bitch to deal with sometimes, and he’d learned to be cruel a little too well. He was pompous and self-centered and proud and hateful—and sure, those things annoyed Sans. They annoyed him plenty. But he knew whose fault it was that Papyrus grew to be that way, and how everyone in this almost-quiet, halfway-safe little town benefitted from it.</p><p>And even under Papyrus’s iron grip, Snowdin was part of the monster kingdom. There were screams in the woods, loud and cracking until the victim lost their voice or their will to make a sound. Disappearances still happened. People were killed in the town square over a wrong glance—it wasn’t exactly illegal. ‘Kill or be killed’ was the single most important law in the Underground, and even if it was the only one Papyrus didn’t enforce, he couldn’t change monsterkind.</p><p>People killed because they wanted to, tortured because they liked it, exercised whatever sick power they could get over others just for the rush of it. Even Papyrus was known to smack Sans around some, conveniently forgetting all the times Sans wouldn’t do that to him years ago. In fact, he seemed to forget that Sans raised him entirely, and that even if he failed in the end, Sans gave up his childhood and his teenaged years to try to SAVE him. Ungrateful little shit.</p><p>It was just how monsters were.</p><p>Papyrus could force them to follow the rules, stomp down on the extortion and some of the worse evils, but he couldn’t change monsterkind. Monsters, including Papyrus, were cruel by nature, and no force on Earth or below it could make them want to change.</p><p>Or, that’s how it was. That’s how always had been, and Sans knew that’s how it always would be. People don’t change for the better, and Papyrus would never forgive him.</p><p>Sans was dead certain of that much, which probably should have been his first clue that he was dead wrong.</p><p>Here’s a thing about time: it has this funny way of proving Sans wrong. Even when he was done with his universe-hopping, overambitious bullshit, a little bit of time passes and it turns out he’s kinda tired of sitting out and watching the world go by.</p><p>When the last human falls down into the Underground, it’s kinda hard to not care anymore, right? It’s a big moment for monsterkind, and Sans isn’t letting them walk out onto the Surface, live free and easy because they sacrificed another innocent kid. Sans can try one more time, for one more sibling who should never have been caught in the world of monsters.</p><p>Go big or go home, right? Second chances aren’t something the Underground hands out for free.</p><p>Sans won’t fail this time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Red: i'm sad<br/>Papyrus: Stop that<br/>Red: nope. still sad<br/>Papyrus: Stop that Or Else<br/>Red, sweating: yep ok good now thanks,,,,;;</p><p>Ah, I had a hard time with this one. I was too sad...here's the best I can do, anyway. I hope you enjoyed it! Or at least got a perspective for why Red is,, like that. He's a really interesting character to write, and I had a really good challenge trying to write out his relationship with his brother in a way that's understandable from both of their perspectives.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I did say it got worse before it got better, right? I'm here to provide your angst fix for the day.</p><p>Thank you for reading! Please take the time to comment if you can :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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